


Cat, Mouse, Songbird

by Bayyvon



Series: Better Late Than Never [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Canon-Typical-Brainwashing, Other, Triloism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28441467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bayyvon/pseuds/Bayyvon
Relationships: Hannibal Lecter/Clarice Starling, Will Graham/Clarice Starling, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter/Clarice Starling
Series: Better Late Than Never [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083302
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Cat, Mouse, Songbird

The moment Clarice comes home to find Will Graham standing in her living room, and life-partner Stewart nowhere to be found, is the moment she realizes that where the little mouse hid, the tomcat would follow. Hannibal had come back for her. She began to reach for the gun at her hip when he spoke.

“Hello, Clarice.” Will greets her from the wideback chair he’s perched in, and Starling realizes this is the first time anyone’s seen him since…

“William.” She speaks firmly, eyes leveled with his own.

Clarice notices then that they aren’t alone. The man who had taken permanent residence in her head, _like a bad habit. She’d once compared him to her own kind of drug._ “Dr. Lecter.”

He says nothing, simply places a hand on Will’s shoulder, flexing his fingers (noticeably missing his sixth) and blinks twice.

“We’ve come to enquire, Ms. Starling--may I call you Agent?” Will asks. It’s flat. Like he already knows the answer, because, well… he does.

When her brows drop firmly together, and she barks “ _No._ ” he smirks.

“Ah, right. **_Ex-_** Special Agent Starling.”

He’d never known her as an agent, and yet it stung. Like the gunpowder in her cheek sometimes did when she scrubbed too hard.

“Hannibal.” She stared firmly between his eyes, trying not to let them water as she fixed her gaze intently as she places her hand firmly on her weapon. “What did you do with Stewart?”

“Nothing, dear lamb. Simply laid him down at home, where he will wake in the morning having no recollection of how he got there.”

Relief lets her choke off the handle of the gun, just a little. But a sharp chill flashes down her neck when she recalls the last time she and Hannibal had been in a room together.

He had been face down in her breasts, licking spilled champagne from between them, murmuring ‘maža mergaitė,’ while he handcuffed her to a fridge.

She had decidedly _not_ forgiven him for leaving her to be exposed to Mapp, covered in bleeding love-bites and trembling with tears. So Starling draws her gun, aiming directly between his ribs. Hannibal doesn’t even flinch, merely smirks and sucks his cheek between his teeth and an amused huff leaves him.

“I see you haven’t forgott-“

“Shut. The fuck. Up, Hannibal.” She flips off the safety and cocks the bullet into the chamber. “I will shoot you, I swear to God—”

“And then what, lamb? Send me, no _us,_ back into the twisted hands of the Baltimore Institution for the Criminally Insane? Is that _really_ what you would wish for me, even now?”

_“Especially **now.”**_

It’s a crack in her armor, her lip had trembled, just enough.

“Clarice,” Will speaks softly, and her gaze flicks down. Between his hands he holds a paper-thin rendering of a death’s-head hawk moth. The kind she had encountered in Jame Gumb’s workshop. “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together—" 

“Doctor Lecter.” Clarice speaks firmly. “You _said,_ you swore—”

“ _Mein Lamm,”_

“Doctor Lecter—”

“Above the ear, or below, Clarice? We haven’t got all night.”

“Doctor Lecter, W-Will—"

“ _Our stars will always be the same now, mischa.”_

_"We're going to take care of you, maža mergaitė."_


End file.
